I'm not one to waste money on gear, so when I buy, I try to buy long term and in so doing, also maximize my profit.

I think two Bose L1's would be a great investment for my needs.

The sound of the two L1's was as you described..."so good it is scary".

The Compacts just wouldn't cover enough gig situations in my case, although we did try a set in the store a while ago, and the sound was very impressive, especially considering their size and weight.

With the L1's, I had no issue whatsoever with any mid-range loss...it was easy to fix things with a simple adjustment on the S900's Main Equalizer.

The parts that seemed to benefit the most from stereo were the guitars, both as Right Hand sounds and in the styles, although I do have a special stereo string patch combination (two different string sounds) that really has a nice "bigness" about it when played in stereo.

The Electric Pianos that use stereo chorus (or panned delay) also benefit nicely, as do the Drawbar Organs that use the Rotary Speaker emulation.

When you think about it, all these arranger instruments were originally designed to sound at their best in stereo, so there is bound to be some loss when played in mono.

Good to see you back posting, Don...you gave us (and quite likely, yourself) a bit of scare with your health issues. I'm glad to see you are on the mend.

Ian